UFC Kicks Off A Triple Header Week On Fight Island With An Awesome Card On ABC Today
Good morning folks! As you're readin this, I'm on my flight over to Fight Island for a week chock full of barbaric human cockfighting. I was actually supposed to be there already, but the final UFC charter flight was delayed when our pilot unfortunately came down with COVID!
While I'm on this plane, though, the first of three events from Fight Island this week will be going down (at 3pm EST on ABC), and it is an AMAZING card! It'll mark the first time MMA has ever been featured on ABC, as well!
Lemme tell ya about the three fights I'm the most excited for....
Max Holloway (-162) vs Calvin Kattar (+138): I've undoubtedly been looking forward to this main event more than any other matchup in 2021 outside of McGregor/Poirier II. You've got a veteran like Holloway taking on one of the crispest strikers in the entire company (who's very much on the rise) in Calvin Kattar, and Dana has already come out and said that with a win here, Kattar could earn himself his first title shot. Things are a little more uncertain on Holloway's end, being he's now 0-2 to Featherweight Champ Alexander Volkanovski (with controversial split decision losses in each), but he certainly ain't on the decline. It's just a perfect matchup. I truly don't have a pick for this fight - and even if I did I would feel kinda shitty saying it because these guys are both MASSIVE friends of the program here at Barstool - but I think it's a little closer than the odds make it seem. They're probably gonna stand and bang for five straight rounds.
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Carlos Condit (-177) vs Matt Brown (+145): This is just old school, violent-as-fuck MMA at it's finest right here. It's also the third time this matchup has been made over the years, and the first time we're actually gonna get it! Both of these guys are battle-tested legends of the sport with some incredibly vicious knockouts to their resumes, both towards the end of their careers, and both ALWAYS game for a fight. I could see us having back-to-back WARS in the main/co-main. As a big Condit fan myself, gotta stick with The Natural Born Killer myself.
Phil Hawes (-134) vs Nassourdine Imavov (+108): Okay, so this is the PRELIM main event (also on ABC) and features Phil Hawes, who is from my very small hometown of Little Ferry, New Jersey. Phil was even kinda in my sister/brother-in-law's circle of friends during high school, and while I don't know him personally, he's always had the reputation in town for being the nicest dude, so I've always pulled for him. He's coming fresh off a spectacular 18-second KO, and I think there's REAL potential for another one of those here against Imavov. Hawes' power and explosiveness is just insane. You could get him via finish for +130 on the Barstool Sportsbook as of this writing.
If you wanna hear a little bit more about these fights (and a buncha others that are going on this week), as well as some general Fight Island/MMA talk in podcast form, check out this lil Fight Island preview Megan Olivi and I did together!
It was a really great time and I think if you're a UFC fan you'll dig it!
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Odds via Barstool Sportsbook